One Powder for 9mm and 45ACP and another for 357/10mm

Power Pistol

Win 231 works well for me in 9mm and 45 Auto.
For 357 Mag I use Accurate No. 9, also works well for lighter 10mm loads.

I'm on kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. I actually like the idea of having acceptable loads with multiple powder/primer/projectile combinations simply because of the potential for hit and miss availability. Sure, the really popular powders have been around awhile but how many times do you see someone looking for a substitute for one or another? Whether it's been discontinued or just hard to find...
I could get by with just CFE Pistol and Power Pistol though.

Howland937 said:

I'm on kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. I actually like the idea of having acceptable loads with multiple powder/primer/projectile combinations simply because of the potential for hit and miss availability.

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Yup, me too. I could reload anything in my current crop with just Unique and get by just fine. But I like having loads tuned and tailored to specific gun-bullet-purpose combinations. CAN it all be done with one powder? Sure. But SHOULD it? That's the real question.

Oh, and as for finding powders that are less popular, when there's a shortage, popularity goes out the window and we learn to make what's available work.

With the shortage I also was looking for alternate powder to cover all my handgun ammo, .380, 9, 38 & 45. I came up with Accur #5. When it was available I bought it along with Accur #7. #5 covers all those Caliber, of coarse it depends on your bullet weight. What I need to do is find alternate bullets since I'm a dedicated hornady XTP guy and loading data are different.

During the obumma panic/shortage I couldn't find any Unique, but I did find some Universal. Today I use Universal in all my handgun loads; 32 ACP up to 45 Colt. Meters good, as clean as can be expected in small loads, and plentiful...

Titegroup
It loads in everything from 25 ACP to 500 S&W Magnum.

No such thing as anything being 'under the radar' when people are scrambling for anything that's available. Rather than shrink your pie of choices I suggest enlarging it. Sooo many good choices - why omit them? Go-to powders - yeah. Sole powders - no, which may leave you high and dry unless a decade + supply on-hand. 10mm has a broad range of bullet weights (135 - 220 gr) best served by two powders...unless consolidating bullet weight also.

dcloco said:

HS6. Accurate and at/near top for speed, easy to clean, but not dirty. Use in 9/38/357/40/44/45.....one powder for all of the centerfire handguns - autos or revolvers.

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I have become a fan of HS-6 of late. I've been using it for the past 2-3 years in heavier handgun loads, and the more I use it the more I like it.

Mind you, it ain't for plinker sub-velocity loads. It likes to be at or near the high end of the data; at the higher pressures it cleans up and really performs well.

For not-quite top end loads, it does very very well.

+150.... for Unique.

What's interesting, I set out on a similar quest the past 2 years... to find a replacement for Unique to use specifically in full power 9mm and .45ACP loads for short barreled pistols. Unique works, certainly, but with all these newfangled powders out there, certainly there is one that meters better... right? Wrong. What I found was... given my particular specifics... that there were powders that worked great for one or the other... but not necessarily both. The powders I tried required a lot of fiddling to get right... unlike Unique where you dump some in, jam a bullet on top, and go shooting. I wound up with 2 powders after all was said and done... I rekindled my love for WST, but only with 200grn .45ACP loads, and W244, which worked well enough to do what I asked in both cartridges. Yes, I had to fiddle with it... bullet seating depth had a lot to do with how well it performed... but now that that's done, I have a reasonable alternate to Unique if need be.

I've used WSF for 9mm, it's actually my prefered powder.

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WSF is good stuff in 9mm, my favorite as well.
I discovered WSF in the last shortage when it was all I could find that had listed loads for 9mm, sure glad I tried it.
It works in .45 but I prefer something a little faster burning there. (or I should say my pistols prefer....)

You mentioned W231/HP38 if you can't find W231/HP38 Ramshot ZIP is close IMO, but it is a different powder


I don't own a 10mm, but if I had to pick one powder for 9mm, .45 and .357 I would probably go with BE86 or maybe Universal.
For 9mm I prefer powders around the middle or slow side of the powders used for 9mm -. WSF, Silhouette, N330, CFE-P (some people really like BE86 for 9mm, my 9s are just so so with it)(been meaning to try AA#5 in 9 just haven't done it yet)
My .45s like HP38/W231, N320 and AA#2
There are quite a few powders that will work in both 9mm and .45 (and also make light/mid .357 loads).
I don't see most of these powders listed for 10mm but do see them listed for .40SW. I don't know but one would think if the could be used in .40 they could be used to make .40 power 10mm loads, but I may be out to lunch on this.

I understand the goal to have one powder for both 9mm and .45 but feel you would be better served with 2. MY 9s and .45s prefer different things, of course all guns are different., heck my 9s can't agree on what they each like best. (but what works best in 1 seem to work well in all the others, just not best) In a pinch most anything you could use in one could be used in the other and most likely be used for light/mid .357 as well.

I use a lot of Universal powder for 9mm, .38 Special, .357mag, lighter .44mag and .454casull reloads. I know it would work well with .45acp, have no idea about 10mm.

Olympus said:

I know HP38/Win 231 is highly recommended, but it seems like that is one of the first powders to get sold out when tough times hit. I'm thinking something a little more "under the radar" so to speak.

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I've had good luck finding 231 at local shops. I use about a pound a month between 380, 9mm, 38 and 45. I use 296 for the 357 but that one is much harder to find.

If your goal is to find a powder that’s obtainable while all others are not, it doesn’t seem likely that will happen. You can usually find published data for just about any pistol powder for those calibers, and if not published there’ll be a thread somewhere that will have something. An example would be WST in 9mm, on this forum.
While I don’t favor hoarding, I do buy in 8# increments when they’re available, and have developed load data for various powder and bullet combinations. That’s the safest way to weather the shortages. Good luck.

LongShot.
High end velocity and accuracy for 9mm ,10mm and .45. Works fantastic with cast bullets.
Decent for low to mid range with .357. Excellent for .38+P.
I buy it in the 8lb keg.

I would not try to load all those with one powder.

you can...but what's ideal for 45ACP, will not be ideal for 357mag.

if you're loading those 4 calibers, your using up powder. It doesn't have to be the same can.

Of the calibers mentioned, 45acp stands out from the others since it is a low pressure round. As such, some powders just don’t work well or only begin to work well at close to max charge. Because of that, I would most likely suggest one powder for 45acp, and another for the other calibers. While the magnum powders will give the most velocity in 357, there are several powders that give really good mid-velocity performance in 357 and work very well in 9 and 10mm. But if I had to pick one powder for all (9, 10, 45acp, and 357mag) I would say BE86. It is my preferred powder in 10mm, one of my preferred powders in 9mm, and my preferred powder for mid-velocity target loads in 357. Another possibility would be AA#5, though I have never tried it in 357 or 10mm.

I’ve tried over 30 different powders in 45acp. I will admit I have not done extensive testing with different bullet types, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Some powders stand out, some will work, and some I would recommend not to use. For light loads that work well in most of my 45s, I prefer Clays. AA#5 and Shooters World Auto Pistol also worked very well. I have one gun (FNX45) that will not cycle reliably unless loaded to near max charges, and for that I like BE86.

I am also in the club that says to pick the best powder for each application. If you are looking for four powders instead of one or two, you are more likely to find at least one of them and be able to continue loading and shooting at least one caliber.

Some may wonder why I bothered trying as many powders as I have in 45. I got started reloading just before the last big shortage nearly 10 years ago. 45 was a caliber I had just stated loading when components were hard to come by, and I wasn’t particularly happy with the results I was getting with the powders I had used in 380, 9, and 40. So, I started going to all the local gun shows and would buy whatever I could find just to try out. I am an engineering type, so once I got started testing, I just wanted to keep going. The positive that came out of the ‘shortage’ is that I now know what I want to keep in stock, what I don’t want to buy, and what will work in a pinch.

I grew up before computers were a thing, and fought tooth and nail for years of frustration trying to find a one size fits all. After all book data only shows it CAN work, not whats best, and that's all we had.

After now using a ballistic software program for about a year, I had to unlearn many things, and grudgingly realized there is no such thing after seeing burn rate/ratio, case fill, pressures and their effect, optimal barrel time etc. For example, one powder that works well for 9MM will throw 25% of the same powder unburned back at my face with .45ACP, which is rather unpleasant.

"having a bad day" or blaming the firearm can be as simple as a unsuitable powder that creates high ES/SD numbers in any caliber. So with pistol, given the amount of charges you get from just a pound I don't mind having a separate one for each caliber.

I have been down the One Powder For All before and while its a neat idea it doesn't really work. Whats the difference between having 4 pounds of one powder that will be a compromise for all rounds loaded with it or just buying 4 different powders that are ideal for the 4 rounds you want to load for?

If I had to I could get by on Unique or a similar powder like Universal and for max loads 2400. I like 2400 better than H110 or 296 because you don't need a magnum primer and you don't have to stuff the case full for it to burn properly. Plus I nearly always get better accuracy with 2400. But three pistol powders would be even better by adding something like Bullseye or AA#2 or the new Clean Shot powder I just got 5 pounds of.

I don't load for 10mm because I don't have one and probably never will. But I do load for 44 mag. Unique makes for a good mid range load in the 44 mag and the 357 and 2400 gives me the full power loads I want.